FOOL BLOOM by Dennis Doph

because why? 65

I have messed around
In the most uncertain quarters
Sucked all the air
Out of this room
Fluffed and huffed and puffed
--for starters
I am just coming into Fool Bloom

Led the way
Into Loew's Metro's abandoned basement
When the smell of piss
was our favorite perfume
Learned far too well
Just what that sultry space meant
As I careened into Fool Bloom

Reached for Burt
and when he turned his back on me
Reached for Amigo
The fuckstud whom he trolled
When both Burt and Amigo
Got a wee bit slack on me
Had my sexual snow shoes halfsoled

Opened my Fool arms
for the English Superstar
Put all my chips
On the wrong roll of the dice
Thought he was Near
But he was never more than Far
What he really wasn't was Nice

Opened up shop
On a fire stair on fifth avenue
Strung up BDSM studs
in the abandoned office of Bosley Crowther
Thought I knew it all
The sum of all of what I knew
Became a simply terrible Manhattan chowder

Opted for Monogamy
With the well hung Blue eyed Boy
Acted out his fantasies
With a minimum of distaste
Seventeen years later --
Having enjoyed all that we might enjoy
We both set that Fantasy
of Monogamy to waste

Set seige to Randy
When he was just off his Walker
Stroked that blond fur farm
Till I was ready to burn
Just in case the film community
Branded me as a Stalker
Randy brought in Cary
as a new Torrid Turn

Watched as my overage filmstuds
Bought the Big C
As they got off watching me misbehave
Was the best Boystud I could possibly be
Balled 'em right on down --
Into the Hollywood Grave

Watched Liberace
flaunt his Polish Bear Dick at the Canyon Club
Watched freckled Van
Go down on Keenan Wynn
Watched all the Taylors --
from Bob to Don to Dub
Learned my special Pole Dance was never a sin

Trolled across Hollywood
After the Studio pulled the chain on me
Listened for the silence
After the last FLUSH
Waited around while David Puttnam
dumped his pain on me
And I learned to SHOVE
instead of PUSH

So I keep pushing
and pulling like a Damn Fool
Here in Santa Barbara's leafiest of groves
My Fool Bloom
Is condensed into an ampule
Which I break like a popper --
Like the rest of my loves*

*thanks to Julio de Marco of Belo Horizonte, Brazil
for supplying this piquant title